This may be confusing if you’re not used to Pinterest so feel free to ask follow up questions. I recommend starting from a simple search and adding the word ‘aesthetic’ to the end and scrolling to find an image that seems within the ballpark of what you’re looking for (adding descriptors like a color or light/dark can also help).

From there click on it and save it to a dedicated board (this is important for a future step). Then scroll down to the ‘more to explore’ below the image you picked and you should see similar images. Save any you like to the dedicated board (they don’t have to match, just save for the future step). ALSO if you scroll far enough, there is something that is super helpful which is Pinterest suggests popular searches that often name the aesthetic of the image. Click on those as well and save what you find while also noting what the aesthetics are for future searches. This may take several tries and variations of the search and you may end up clicking through several images and checking their ‘more to explore’ in a sort of nesting doll of searches. This is good. That means you are niching down.

After you’ve saved images you like, you may start to notice a pattern when you look back at your board that may give you a better understanding of what searches you like and what you’re looking for. Here’s where that important step comes in. At the bottom of the board (unless the board has been flagged) there should be an option for ‘more images’. This is where pinterest gives suggestions based on the images already in the board. They should match the vibe; though you may need to click out of it several times and edit the board in order to get a consistent result. On that note, for aesthetic boards, I would take out anything that removes from the aesthetic and move it somewhere else to make the suggested images more consistent (I.e fan site pics, outfit pics, stock images). I keep some skz images in the boards but keep it minimal and specific so it doesn’t clog up the board.

There, things should be more cohesive and make building a moodboard easier. It should also affect your algorithm and make the homefeed more atune to matching your aesthetics so future searches are easier. It will also make it so you can eventually find inspo by just scrolling on home. You can also add a Pinterest board to your home feed by using the ‘home feed tuner’ in settings. Turn off the boards with generic images and turn on the aesthetic boards. It’ll make a huge impact on your algorithm.

One more thing is. I save every image that evokes a story idea out of me. Usually my ideas for wips come from a compelling image I see on pinterest and build an idea from. Save pics you like ahead of time. I have a Pinterest board for settings that are interesting, one for random images that evoke ideas from me, and a skz board just for aesthetic images either of skz or ones that remind me of skz. When I make a new board, I scroll through those three boards first and add images from it to a new board dedicated to my fic idea to ease the process I listed above.

That was really long but I hope it made sense. Once again feel free to ask questions or get clarification 💗 hope this helps even a little

(ps. my fave search term to start with is southern gothic) *im gonna leave an example on twitter below this ask